Court upholds ban on anti-Erdoğan poem

A German court on Friday upheld an earlier ruling which bans German comedian Jan Böhmermann from reciting parts of a poem making fun of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, local media reported.

The court in Hamburg ruled in May that re-publication of 18 “abusive and defamatory” verses in the 24-verse poem was not allowed and said the sexual references directed at the Turkish president were unacceptable.

Böhmermann called Erdoğan a “pervert,” a “zoophile” and a “goat-f—-er” in a poem, which he read out during a show by German public broadcaster ZDF, after which Turkey asked Germany to file criminal charges against the comedian.

Friday’s ruling said that “artistic freedom is unconditional but not unbounded.” But it added that a head of state “must accept heavy criticism, as freedom of expression arises from the special need to criticize power.”

Erdogan

Tom Cullem

Ah, yes, Merkel, the only leader in Europe defending “democracy and liberalism” – unless, of course, they threaten a deal that saves her political arse.

Odd, there are no articles covering the arrests in Montpellier allegedly preventing an imminent attack on a tourist area. And by the way, Le Pen increased her lead over Macron this week – only for first round voting, of course.

The EU is a joke.

Posted on 2/10/17 | 3:04 PM CEST

Mark Anderson

The small handed turkey wins.

Posted on 2/10/17 | 9:01 PM CEST

Freonpsandoz

The ability of dictatorships to suppress free speech worldwide through political and economic pressure is a serious problem, and not just for comedic speech. Nations that understand the importance of free speech need to fight back against such dictatorships. Here’s a chilling example of such censorship throughout the entire Western world that was successfully enacted by the Saudis in 1980, but you can find the video on the BitTorrent network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Princess

Posted on 2/10/17 | 10:28 PM CEST

rer

While everyone is concerned about Trump and rightly so, this is so much more chilling. The lack of freedom of expression in Europe is by far a greater concern to me than any of Trump’s tweets.